How to read a film review, including ours

Reviews are widely read as verdicts and widely written as arguments. That mismatch causes most of the frustration people have with criticism.

Reading one usefully is a skill, and it takes about thirty seconds.

Find the reviewer's priorities, not their conclusion

Every critic weights things differently. Some care most about structure, others about performance, others about image and sound. A three-star review from someone who prizes what you prize is more useful than a five-star review from someone who does not.

You can usually identify priorities within two paragraphs by noticing what gets described in detail.

Read the objections, not the praise

Praise in reviews tends toward the generic. Objections are specific, and specificity is where the information is. A reviewer who says the second act sags has told you something actionable. A reviewer who says the film is a triumph has not.

Crucially, an objection you do not care about is a recommendation. If the complaint is that a film is slow and you like slow films, that is a positive signal.

Treat scores as compression, not judgement

A score summarises an argument and loses almost everything in the process. Two films with identical scores may have nothing in common, including how much the reviewer enjoyed them. Aggregate scores compound the problem by averaging incompatible criteria.

What we try to do

Our reviews state what a film is attempting before assessing whether it succeeds, flag meaningful spoilers before discussing them, and separate craft from preference where we can. Where a verdict rests on taste rather than execution, we try to say so plainly.

Where we get something wrong, our corrections policy explains how we fix it.